


head lights pointed at the dawn

by starkmccall



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fix-It, Future Fic, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, richie be like: [john mulaney voice] my husband is a bitch and i like him SO much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 22:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20608592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkmccall/pseuds/starkmccall
Summary: "You do realise this means people around the world are gonna hear about how much I love your dick, right?" Richie says, tucked behind Eddie in bed late one night.He can almost see Eddie squint at him. "That's not actually a part of the show, is it?"Post-Chapter Two. Eddie lives. Richie goes back to comedy.





	head lights pointed at the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> yes i do have an assignment due tomorrow which i haven't started or even thought about yes i also have a test in two days which i haven't begun studying for yes i did end up writing part of this at a bus stop on my phone and then decide that finishing it was my number one priority. when i fucking fail my first year of university because of these dumbasses i'm suing stephen homophobe king
> 
> shoutout to whoever made that tumblr post about an au where eddie lives and richie does standup abt him with that one john mulaney screencap because that singlehandedly induced this
> 
> anyway have this absolute nonsense that has Not been proof-read because i am a clown of first water. if there is any very noticeable and embarrassing mistakes please let me know. it's set sometime after the events of part two except obviously eddie doesn't die n he and richie sort their shit out. title from baby boy by kevin abstract because apparently i was put on this earth exclusively to make myself suffer

The comeback show is his manager’s idea, but the subject material is Richie’s. 

“You really want to come out?” Marla asks, tapping her nails on the table between them. There's a ridiculously large cup of coffee in front of her, which she takes a long swig from. "You sure you're ready for that? I'm not discouraging you, I just need to know that you'll be able to cope with the inevitable blowback. You know what comedy culture is like."

"Why do you think it's taken me forty years to be able admit out loud that I'm gay?" Richie shoots back, exasperated. He's not angry at her, really. He knows that she's coming from a place of genuine concern, and she's not trying to stop him, but still. He's thought a lot about this. He just wants to get it over with.

"I'm not your therapist." She replies coolly, and Richie's reminded of why he hired her in the first place. She's one of the only people in the world who will not only not take his bullshit, but also readily deliver it back in a stone-cold manner. "But I get it. If you want to do it, I'll make it happen. But you can't flake out on me again, okay? Half the media is convinced you're a drug addict, the other half thinks you're having a complete mental breakdown."

"It'd be a shame if they found out it was actually both." He cracks, and Marla doesn't even deem that with a response, just raises a manicured eyebrow at him. "Seriously though, I'm ready. Eddie's fine with it, too, which is really the only thing that matters."

"Still can't believe a man like that asked you to marry him."

"Neither can I." Richie grins. "Does this mean the show's on?"

Marla tilts her head at him. "I'll make some calls. That doesn't mean anything's gonna come of it, though. People might not want to host you if they think there's a risk of you having a meltdown on stage and then running off in what looked like a drunken stupor."

"Nah," Richie says, standing. "If anything that'll make them more likely to agree. People love the drama."

As it turns out, people really do love the drama. Every stop on his tour is sold-out, and Netflix offers a filming deal. 

"You do realise this means people around the world are gonna hear about how much I love your dick, right?" Richie says, tucked behind Eddie in bed late one night.

He can almost see Eddie squint at him. "That's not actually a part of the show, is it?"

"Well, originally I wanted the whole thing to be a 90 minute monologue on how much I love all of your body, but they didn't go for that, so I cut it down to the most important part."

"Beep fucking beep, Richard." Eddie says, which would be insulting if he wasn't so deeply fond while he said it.

"You are okay with this though, aren't you? Me talking about you, I mean."

Eddie turns in his arms so they're facing each other, but it's dark and Richie doesn't have his glasses on, so his face isn't so much a face as it is a flesh-coloured blur with hair. "We've been over this a hundred times. You know I'm fine with it. Are you fine with it?"

"Yeah." Richie sighs. "Yeah, I am. It's just - it's taken a lot for me to get here, you know? I never thought I could have this, any of this. I thought I wasn't made for this kind of thing. Turns out I was just waiting for you." Eddie kisses him for that, long and deep. "Man, I didn't realise romantic shit got you so horny, I should have thought of saying this shit years ago, what the fuck-"

"Shut up." Eddie says, and kisses him again. It's kind of a shitty kiss, because they're both smiling too big for it to actually go anywhere, but that doesn't matter to Richie. All that matters is that for the first time, in a long goddamn time, he's fucking happy. 

In what feels like no time at all, it's the night of his first show. All of the Losers fly in from their separate corners of the country to see it, and it fills him with overwhelming calm just to see them. Bev and Mike hold his hands, and Bill kisses him on the cheek, and Ben wraps his arms around his waist from behind, completing their solid little circle of disconcertingly co-dependent adults. And Eddie - Eddie's been there for the week beforehand when Richie started losing his mind every day. Eddie rubbed Richie's shoulders, and sat on his lap holding him in his arms, and countered every one of his insecurities with his logical, risk-analyst way of thinking. Eddie kisses him in front of all their friends and some of the crew before Richie goes on, lets him grab his ass and bury his face in his neck. He makes Richie brave enough to go out on that goddamn stage and spill his guts to a crowd of strangers, which is what he's doing right now. 

"Now I know you're probably wondering, where the fuck has this guy been?" There's jeers of agreement from the audience. "I know some of you think I'm an addict, and some of you think I'm dying, and some of you are just here on the off-chance I start going absolutely apeshit and start vomiting on people, Exorcist-style. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how boring your life is, none of that is true or going to happen." A joking note of disappointment rises in the crowd. "I know, I know, sorry, unfortunately the truth is a lot more boring than that. The thing is, a minute before my fateful last performance, I got a call from a good friend of mine." He looks for Mike in the audience and sees him, front row, smiling up at Richie in the kind way he always has. "He told me I had to come back to my home-town, and see my old friends again. And you can imagine how terrifying that must have been, because who the fuck wants to see their old friends again? Especially my friends, who'd always been beautiful, but are now fuckin' GQ-model looking motherfuckers. I hate them." Another laugh from the crowd. "I don't really. But yeah, that call really shook me, and I started to remember all these things about my childhood, and it was - a lot, to say the least, and so yeah, I kind of had a complete meltdown on stage. But now I've sorted out my shit! I'm ready for action baby! My life is back on track, mostly."

“There's some other important news about my life, actually: I got engaged!” He holds up the hand with an engagement ring on the finger, to raucous applause from the audience. “Some of you might have noticed already, but yeah! I got engaged! I know some of you are probably thinking, who on Earth agreed to marry this human-Shrek looking dick-joke making motherfucker.” There’s a loud laugh. “Trust me, I wonder about that every morning when I wake up.”

“But not only have I gotten engaged, but I’ve already become a ‘Wife Guy’.” Richie makes quotation marks along with that particular bit of speech. “You can tell how fuckin’ old and out of touch I am, cause I didn’t even know what that was until like a week ago, until my friend’s wife told me about it. Though technically it’s wrong on two counts because, obviously I’m not married, but also I’m - well - I’m marrying a man.” His hands start to shake violently, in spite of the wild cheers coming from the audience, after a brief moment of shocked silence. “Yeah, I’m like, incredibly gay, so if you’re a homophobe you should probably just. Clear out now. And please, if you would be so kind, don’t call me a slur on the way out. Not because it’s offensive but I grew up in Maine in the 80s, so at this point it’s just boring.” There’s a nervous laugh from the audience, like they aren’t sure if they’re allowed to laugh. “I was going to go further with this joke, but I think both my fiancé _ and _my therapist would call that ‘an unhealthy and detrimental coping mechanism’, or something. Which is kind of hilarious, given literally the only reason the only reason people seem to become comedians is to poke fun at their own trauma.”

“But yeah, I’ve become a Wife Guy! Or a Husband Guy, really. Even though we’re not married, though we might as well fucking be. We’ve been married since the day we met, as far as I’m concerned. There was a period of like, twenty years or so where we didn’t speak, but wasn’t that just every heterosexual marriage for like, centuries? If anything we’re keeping it traditional as possible.” There’s another laugh, even from the clearly-slightly-unsettled straight guys around the room. “That’s a good point, actually. Do you know I literally forgot that I was gay?” This time there’s exclamations of surprise coupled with the laughter that comes from the audience upon hearing that statement. “I’m not kidding. And I have ADHD, so forgetting things is one of my biggest talents, but this one really took the fucking cake. Like, I lived in this place called Derry until I was 16, right? And I was like a fully-fledged tragic homo, you know, super in love with one of my best friends, who is, by the way, now my fiance. But then I moved away and just - forgot, somehow. I guess I forgot about him, though I don’t know how I ever could-” The audience ‘awws’ him. “Yeah, you guys are aww-ing, he’s probably waiting backstage to break up with me for being so publically sappy. But yeah, I genuinely just forgot I was gay. And then I went back to Derry, and I saw him again, and it was like - oh, God. Suddenly George Michael starting singing full-blast in my head, and rainbows started shooting out of my ass, and I bought a cowboy hat and moved to the mountains with Jake Gyllenhaal.” There’s a few whoops at that, and Richie sees a very enthusiastic and clearly drunk woman raise her glass at him. 

“Fortunately he also turned out to be gay, and also super in love with me, for some reason, and now we’re getting married! Being in love is great, you guys. I can’t believe it took me forty years to figure that out, especially given it’s the subject of like three quarters of all media ever produced. But being in love is _ so _ great. And I know that some of you are in the crowd fuckin’ like, rolling your eyes, waiting for me to make some dumbass sex joke, and don’t worry, that’ll be later in the show. I haven’t changed that much.” There’s cheers, and more laughter. “But I’ve spent forty years feeling like shit, and now I feel great, and I’m in love, and more importantly someone is somehow in love with me, so I wanna talk about that shit! It’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’ve had a tender kiss on the mouth from Seth Meyers. Like, I get to wake up in the morning and be like, oh shit, it’s the love of my life, we live together. And then we get to like, spend time together, and have a shitton of sex, and I get to do that for the rest of my life! What the fuck! I get now why people make those dumbass Instagrams and do essay-long captions on how much they love their partner. I mean, I will never do that, because I’m morally opposed to Instagram. Nothing is more of a nightmare than an app that requires you to regularly post photos of your face when your face looks like this, okay? But I get it now, because all I fuckin' do is talk about how much I love my fiance. It’s embarrassing, man, but life’s too short, and all that shit.”

“Now, nobody came here to get a fuckin’ inspirational lecture, and I’m definitely the _ least _qualified person to give life advice on any subject, so let’s get on with the goddamn show before I start crying, or some shit.” There’s a roar from the crowd, and Richie grin is so wide it feels like it could split his face in two. Doing this, entertaining people? This is what he was fuckin’ born for. 

The rest of the show goes just as well, if not better. It feels good to be performing, and not just to be performing but to be performing his _own_ material. People are far more responsive to that than they are to any of the shit he's put out in the last few years, and it's nice, to know that people do genuinely find _him_ entertaining, not just the people he had previously hired to write for him. He almost doesn't want to go off-stage, by the end, so caught up in the energy and the joy of it. The crowd gives him a standing ovation when he finishes, and he manages to wait until he is definitively behind the wings, and out of the eyes of the audience and the Netflix cameras, before he allows any tears to fall. He searches for Eddie, instantly, and finds him, wrapping him in a hug before they can even say a word to each other. One of them is shaking, but they're holding each other so tightly it's impossible to tell who. Eventually Richie pulls back, and grabs Eddie's face in both hands so he can kiss him.

"I did it."

"You did it." Eddie agrees, kissing him on the cheek. "Without fucking up in any of the hundred ways you made me run through with you. I think that counts as taking advantage of my job, you know."

"If anyone's taking advantage of anyone's job, it's you. You're the one who gets to fly around in first class and be my trophy husband for the next two months."

"I would say we might as well elope and be done with it so you can actually be accurate when you call me your husband, but you would definitely take that _too_ seriously."

"We _are_ going to Vegaaaaas." Richie sings, wiggling his eyebrows, which grants him a simple eye-roll from Eddie. 

"We've talked about this." A voice from behind them says, and they both turn to see the Losers, Bev standing at the front, having been the one who spoke. "You're not allowed to get married without all of us present, you understand?"

Richie delivers a matching eye-roll. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, you guys are our best friends and want to be present for the happiest day of our life, etc etc. Well, you're too late, because the happiest day of my life was actually when Eddie let me-"

"Beep beep!" Eddie says, insistently, flushed red under the dim lighting of backstage.

"When Eddie let me kiss him for the first time! I find it incredibly insulting that you thought I would take that in a direction that was anything other than overwhelmingly wholesome, you know."

"That's because I'm subjected to everything that comes out of your mouth almost every second of the day. I'm pretty sure you've made more romantic comments about my mom than you have about me."

"Eddie, you are the funniest person I've ever met, and you're the only person I could never get tired of talking to, and you're so handsome, I love you so much-"

Eddie gets even redder, if that is even physically possible. "Jesus Christ, Rich." 

"I could go all night, baby. Which is co-incidentally what I said to-"

"If you say my mother, I will end this engagement right now, in front of all our friends."

Richie looks up, to see all of them staring at him bemusedly. "Well, thank God you reminded me they were here, because otherwise I would have started trying to make it up to you in a way that is certainly _not _suitable for family viewers."

"Thanks for the concern." Mike says, flatly, and they all burst into laughter. Finally there's hugs and kisses and congratulations from all of them to Richie, and a call for celebration from Ben.

"You get to pay, though."

"I get to pay?" Richie replies, indignantly. "I let you guys into a sold-out show of an acclaimed comic for free! You should be buying me drinks for the rest of my life! And besides, with your disgustingly handsome face, you could probably get any bartender to shower you in free alcohol." Ben smiles shyly at that, and Bev grins at Richie, presses a loud kiss to Ben's cheek, which only serves to make his smile even more bashful. 

"Disgustingly handsome, huh?" Eddie says, nudging Richie's arm with his shoulder. 

"You know I only have eyes for you, Eds my love." He responds, making kissy noises at him, and Eddie tells him not to call him that, and the whole scenario feels so familiar he can almost see them at fourteen, young and stupid and not knowing what the things they said to each other really meant. He wants to turn around and see Stan roll his eyes at them, understanding their relationship far better than either of them ever did, and then it hits him, just like it always does, that he'll never see Stan again. The thought makes him stop in his tracks abruptly, and they all turn to look at him.

"I wish Stan was here." He offers, and Eddie smiles at him, softly, from where he's standing beside him. "It always felt like such a victory, whenever you got him to laugh. Like you'd done something really special."

"It's cause he was special." Mike says, and Bev rests her head against his shoulder. "I've never met anyone like him. I don't think I will again."

"I've never met anyone like _any _of you." Bill adds. "I don't think I could ever love anyone the way I love all of you."

"Bill, if you want us to have an orgy, you're going to have to be a lot more upfront then that." Richie says, because he is still fundamentally uncomfortable with sincerity and emotions. Bill smacks him over the head lightly, and Ben groans, and Eddie squeezes his hand, because he knows what Richie meant to say is: I love all of you too. The moment is over, but the night isn't, and when they go out it's like they're teenagers again, free and light and unafraid of consequences. They all have shit to do, and there'll already be a bunch of hate messages in Richie's Twitter DMs, and he and Eddie still haven't set a date or a place for the wedding, but for now, it doesn't matters. All that matters is the fact that they're alive, and they're here, and no evil fucking demon clown could ever take that away from them, ever again. 

**Author's Note:**

> there we go babey like/subscribe/merch link in bio 
> 
> also i just reread this after posting it because not checking for errors made me Stressed and i truly did not realise the amount of times i used the word “fucking” in this. sorry for being the most foulmouthed bitch on the planet i guess 
> 
> i'm on tumblr @bisexualparker if anyone wants to hmu so i can yell about IT with someone and not just slowly go Off The Deep End having to put up with my own thoughts. having said that that doesn't sound particularly appealing so if you instead decide to block me on tumblr i understand fully.


End file.
